52. Is the father likely to prevail?

A general duty of care is imposed on all human activity. When a person engages in an activity, he is under a legal duty to act as an ordinary, prudent, reasonable person. It is presumed that he will take precautions against creating unreasonable risks of injury to other people. However, the plaintiff must show that the defendant owed a legal duty to people in the same position as the plaintiff.

A defendant may be liable for negligent infliction of emotional distress when he causes the plaintiff intense mental suffering as a bystander, even without experiencing physical injury. To recover damages in this situation, the plaintiff must prove that he: (i) was in a close relationship with the person injured by the defendant; (ii) was present at the scene of the injury; and (iii) personally observed or perceived the event. There are a few special situations in which courts have allowed plaintiffs to recover for emotional distress when there would otherwise be no damages awarded. Some special relationships between the parties give rise to a cause of action.

For example, where the defendant is a medical or social work professional who learns that a patient poses a specific danger to a third party, many courts recognize a duty imposed on the defendant to warn the third party. For example, in Tarasoff v. Regents of the Univ. of Cal., 551 P.2d 334 (Cal. 1976), the California Supreme Court held that a psychotherapist has a duty to warn a non-patient third party if he learns that the third party is at risk of intentional harm by a patient. However, if the medical professional only has reason to believe that the patient is dangerous to himself (i.e., is suicidal), then the professional has no duty to warn others, such as the patient's family, of the danger. This is true even if the patient commits suicide and a close family member suffers great emotional distress as a consequence.

B is correct. The psychiatrist did not owe a duty to the father to warn him of the patient's suicidality. Although courts typically impose a duty on medical professionals to warn a third party if that third party is in danger of harm by a patient, this duty does not extend to situations where a patient is a danger only to himself. As such, courts will not award damages to family members who experience severe emotional distress when a loved one commits suicide and they were not warned by a medical professional of the risk. Here, the psychiatrist did not have a duty to warn the father that the patient was suicidal. This case is distinguishable from Tarasoff v. Regents of the Univ. of Cal. because in that case, the patient posed a danger to a third party, as opposed to himself, as was the case here. Considerations of privacy and confidentiality usually lead courts to deny a duty on the part of therapists to non-patients when only the patient himself is at risk.

A is incorrect. This answer reaches the correct answer with the wrong reasoning. The father will not prevail, but not because he «did not sustain a physical impact.» First, this is a misstatement of the facts. The father's emotional distress resulted in a stroke, which was clearly a physical impact. However, physical impact is irrelevant here because there was no duty to the father in the first place. Where there is a duty to avoid the negligent infliction of emotional distress upon bystanders, the existence of physical injury may be relevant. (Note: Many jurisdictions have rejected the rule requiring a physical impact in negligent infliction of emotional distress cases.) The father will nonetheless lose because when a patient does not pose a threat to others, a medical professional's duty of care usually extends only to the patient.

C is incorrect. The fact that the father was a member of the patient's immediate family is also irrelevant in this kind of emotional distress case. The nature of the relationship would be relevant in a case brought by a bystander who suffered emotional distress upon witnessing a negligently caused injury to a family member, or in a case where a psychiatrist might prevent harm to a family member who is threatened by the patient by warning the patient's family. In this case, however, the psychiatrist's duty of care extended only to the patient. Absent a duty to the father, the psychiatrist will not be liable, regardless of the fact that the father's son committed suicide.

D is incorrect. Even if the father's emotional distress is foreseeable, that foreseeability is not ordinarily sufficient to create a duty to the father, who was not the psychiatrist's patient. Foreseeability alone, even when the risk is high and the cost of precautions is relatively low, is not enough to sustain a negligent infliction of emotional distress case. There must exist a duty as to the father, but because the psychiatrist knew only of potential harm to the patient, not a third party, no duty existed.